Baltimore hospital following a lengthy transplant operation on Monday.

Mr. Griffiths, a columnist at the Mid-Ocean News and a substance abuse counsellor, was in stable condition and his breathing tube had been removed, said his wife, Dee, yesterday. She is set to fly to Baltimore today to join her husband at Johns Hopkins in Maryland where he has been since suffering a series of heart attacks in November of last year.

Mrs. Griffiths said her husband had been joined by members of his family and had spoken to them. Doctors were giving him medication to elevate his blood pressure and to relieve some of the pain he was experiencing, she continued, which was standard procedure following this type of operation.

Mr. Griffiths was taken off the list of people waiting for a heart transplant when he became severely ill in May.